Monday, December 01, 2014

It's kind of hard to believe in 2014 that there was a time when Westerners had little to no access to Japanese RPGs.

A lot of that changed around the time I first got into gaming--which is to say, around the time Nintendo published the original Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy games in North America in late 1989 and early 1990, respectively.

The first JRPG that really had an impact on me, though, was 1990's The Final Fantasy Legend, a GameBoy title that began life in Japan as Makai Toushi SaGa (aka SaGa).

I mean, I spent a bunch of time with both of the above-mentioned NES RPGs as a gaming noob, but neither of those titles sucked me in like TheFinal Fantasy Legend (and, a few months later, the North American version of Final Fantasy IV).

In a way, that kind of surprises me, as I distinctly remember being confounded (and even disappointed) by some aspects of this portable adventure. The breakable weapons are one example, and the Dragon Quest-esque (i.e., invisible party members) battle scenes are another.

Both of those niggles eventually grew on me, of course--or maybe I should say I grew to respect, if not completely adore, them.

Anyway, I mention all of this in order to explain why I recently picked up the complete-in-box copy of the Japanese version of TheFinal Fantasy Legend, SaGa, that can be seen throughout this post.

Admittedly, nostalgia wasn't the only reason I bought this copy of SaGa. Two more reasons were: this particular copy was pretty darn cheap (less than $10, including shipping) and I hoped it might be another game that could be put to use in my journey to learn the Japanese language.

If you're looking for a few additional reasons to purchase your own copy of SaGa, you may want to consider the photos of the game's instruction manual that I've published here. Needless to say, it's chock-full of awesome illustrations.

Have any of you played any version of this handheld JRPG? If so, what are your thoughts on it, or what are your memories of it?

20 comments:

I loved the Final Fantasy Legend games. The first one was as bare-bones as a story can get, but they got better. If they ever turn up on 3DS Virtual Console, I'd probably end up playing them again for nostalgia.

I had a roommate in college who loved that game, and still broke it out every now and then to play. At the time I wasn't really interested, but Jeremy Parish did a rad Gameboy World episode about it a couple of weeks ago that made me wish I'd paid more attention to it! It seems to have an incredible amount of content in it for what a lot of people figured would be a Final Fantasy Lite adventure.

Another fan! Yay :) Also, yes, the first one barely had a story, but I loved it anyway. I loved the second one even more, though, I have to admit. Of course, I've always been a sucker for gods and goddesses and such...

Oh, I didn't realize Jeremy had published a GB World episode about it! I'll have to check that out ASAP. Thanks for letting me know about it, Zach! BTW, you really should check out these games at some point--especially the second one, IMO.

Have you tinkered with the other SaGa games and generally Akitoshi Kawazu works like the Last Remnant. If you liked FF Legend, you shuold really investigate if you haven't already. http://store.steampowered.com/app/23310/

Oh, yes, I've played a number of SaGa games over the years, Rowan. All of FFL 1 and 2 (or at least I think I played all of the second one), just a tiny bit of FFL 3, some of each of the Romancing SaGa trio (although not much, due to the language barrier), all of SaGa Frontier and a tiny bit of SaGa Frontier 2. I also own the Romancing SaGa remake and Unlimited SaGa for PS2, but I've yet to play either of them XD

When i first played SaGa 1 (as Final Fantasy Legend), it was borrowing a copy from a friend. I think i lent him Kirby 2 in exchange, or maybe it was even the first Kirby game. I remember how much i liked the game, but i always got lost in the tower! I also interpreted "Creator" at the end of the game as the creator of the game instead of God, so it was a really weird meta video game moment for me! I've started it a few times since, but the farthest i've gotten is the 2nd world. I need to play it again! My battery finally died after 20 years so it probably won't be on the original cartridge.

Wow, that's a great memory, finchiekins! I'm sure I got lost in the tower, too, although I can't remember much about that portion of the game right now, sadly. I guess that means I have to play it again--and soon! Hopefully you can get around to it, too :)

About this blog

Yep, I'm gay. And I like video games. Old Japanese games and systems are my favorites--the Famicom, PC Engine, original PlayStation and GameBoy, especially--but I like plenty of newer ones, too. If you have similar interests and you don't mind perusing a blog that's got the word gay in its name and is practically slathered in pink, you'll probably enjoy your time here. I'm also on Facebook, Flickr, Google+, Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter, by the way. Oh, and my Switch Friend Code = SW-5852-5514-6897.